Available School Records

Welcome to the schoolrecords.org.uk site ... information about the school records, school registers and admission books from Victorian times, how to access the records online, how to make the most from your searches, what is available and not available, and much, much, more.

UK School Records - What's Available

This page gives details of which records are available now to be searched online.

The site home page is here.

For an example on how I used the school registers to track a Sheffield family in the 1910s and 1920s, then visit this page.

This page of the UK School Records website concentrates on which records are available for you to view now online.

Those available online fall into two groups. First are where the records of an individual school has been transcribed and while that is an added bonus if your ancestor happened to go to the school, there is a low chance of finding them if you just know that they lived in a certain town.

Much more useful are where the records of all schools in an area have been transcribed and it is these that are starting to become available for online searching, although coverage is far from universal.

In general the records available are over 100 years old. In a decision notice dated 5 April 2011, the UK Information Commissioner ruled that the information recorded in school admission registers, log books and punishment books can be deemed as sensitive personal information and, as such, can be made exempt from disclosure under section 40 (2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 for a period of 100 years.

London School Admissions & Discharges, 1840-1911

This collection of School Admission and Discharge records for schools in London is available on Ancestry. It contains records of more than 1.7 million students from 843 different schools with details of Admission Date, Name, Parents' names, Parents' occupation, Address and Birth Date.

Manchester School Registers, 1870-1916

This major collection from Findmypast of Manchester School Registers covers the period 1870-1916, 35 schools in total.

Sheffield School Records

This collection from Sheffield indexers covers admissions to 32 schools from the 1880s to 1930s. It is free to access and search.
An example of searching using this collection is here.

Cheshire School Records 1796 to 1950

These collection from Family Search of Cheshire School registers contain about 1.9 million names from 120 Cheshire schools. It is free to access and search.